(one day years from now you will be willing to do anything in order to get back in this place)
I think what drives me most crazy is that I’ve yet to lose my mind. I’ve been so lucky and have remained relatively untouched through these four years. With the exception of community-wide tragedies and personal issues that inevitably have taken a toll on my childish heart, I haven’t been completely broken. I’ve suffered the losses of family and friends to distance and time and even death Himself but I have kept steady. I’ve marched on from disrupting occurrences and saddening nightly news on the TV with the help of seeking beauty in small things, like the way pencil led presses to a fresh sheet of smooth white paper and the way light attaches to my street on school mornings.
My fear has only grown, however. There must be a balance, I’ve learned, in order to maintain circulation. Like fluidity in rivers, how despite the scattered sticks and stones, there still flows a thin liquid which holds together the entire piece of nature. There must be good and bad, and I feel I’ve hogged the good for my early years. I feel as if I’m running out. I’m not setting despair as my default expectation for the upcoming months, but I have become overwhelmingly scared for them. If I’ve been a happy girl all my life, I’ll only have more things to miss, won’t I?
Once the idea enters, it makes itself at home
Once the idea comes, it never really goes—
You will pull down the street with a euphoric glint roofing the car. It will radiate excitement in my bones. My heart will leap. I will peer into a dozen mirrors. The sun will be out. The rays will pour through the holes in tree branches where green maple leaves of summer have yet to come in full. The lawn will be disrupted by footsteps. They will scurry. They will jump into open arms. The music will play, will seep through the new air that has never met the same melody before. Hello, hello, dum duh duh dum dum duh, yeah. We will hum. You will smile and I will blush. What would you like to do first? Let’s go for a drive. Your windows will already be rolled down and I will gaze out onto the neighborhood, naturally. The wind will roar over the stereo, but we will sing above it. I’m only this far, and only tomorrow will lead the way. I can’t wait any longer. Park on the side of the road. Let’s be the past, let’s be last year and fog the windows up at night. By smoke and by condensation and by perspiration. By nervous laughter. The way the rain comes down, the way the rain comes down on you, the way it does. Wash it all away in kisses you will. We will be flying despite the four hot, thick tires beneath our seats. We will be suspended in thin air by each other’s energy, minus the car that supports us and the laws of gravity. We will be together. Wet kiss and drooped lids. Scruffy face and untamed hair. You will drive away. But you will be home. I swear by now I’m playing time against my troubles.
Live, live, live!
The snow looks delightfully welcoming only in late July, and that August greenery is a foreign loveliness round Christmastime.
I’m in sweats, I dream of silk gowns. I’m at a formal gathering and I slump in yearning for a sofa to sink into.
Alone for the evening? How I wish my friends and I were out adventuring…
In a crowded used car being driven by a 17 year old? …why couldn’t I have stayed in and wallowed in the quiet night?
Whatever moment it happens to be that I am imprisoned against, I fantasize over the next, or the last, or worse: the ones that will never even happen. The now is a place for the mind to violently peer though iron gates leading to memory, to goals, to dreams. So what is real if at this second in time we are simply reminiscing? What accomplishments are really achieved if they’ve only been planned all my life? What is thought, and what is scenery for the thought? And where does that line stand? Is it painted out in red and drawn in a thick, distinct stroke, or is it blurred, like a misty sunset over an ocean’s horizon? And how much does reality reflect dreams? Or does dreaming simply mock reality? Which comes first? Which dies first? Does a dream die with the dreamer? Is the first snowfall over Long Island only wished for in the burning heat of an aching summer?
What is the difference between a brilliant artist and a madman? Is there a difference? Are the two synonymous and interchangeable? And for those who disagree, how sane are they?
…And will it rain tomorrow?
You are the sun, and I the moon.
I miss the sound of seventeen.
Come back around again;
I, too, can illuminate
(But only with your light).
You can’t bury a person like that. The whole purpose to soul is that it cannot be physically destroyed, whether you try to smother it or send it away, it will effortlessly seep through anything you try to shield it off with.
I’m such a firm believer in being weary of medications. There’s a difference between helping someone function and completely controlling them with a pill. What she needs now is not order and punishment, but just the opposite. She needs warmth from the love of her mother and the helping hand of her sister.
It kills me that we live hours away from each other. I don’t want you to be away, fighting this disease alone. I want you with us. To spend time with your family is to find true order; to know your real roots. I want you to learn how similar you are to your dad. I want you to know that he unconditionally loved you so much (as do we) that it is practically unspeakable. You are the prime example of why I have blind faith in humanity, why I still laugh uncontrollably at holiday gatherings, why I grip memories so tightly in the back pocket of my jeans…
There is no cure like the company of family.
Come home, come home, come home
Every day I fall in love with earth all over again. It amazes me how we go on living our lives , waking up in the morning and walking past the same things over again and again without stopping to admire it. Whenever I find time to spend on my own, I take a moment or two to gape at the beauty that surrounds me. It brings me to tears as I think about it. Everything is art. Everything is glorious. Even the ugliest things, they are crafted so delicately and intertwine with the good and somehow lead back to gorgeous sunlight, or laughter, or babies, or flushed cheeks, or reflections, or flowing rivers, or snowfall, or sunsets. I ask too many questions, I stare off into space, I wander away alone all because I’m distracted by and stricken with the utter amazement that I am apart of. Perhaps I do feel too much. But I won’t let them make me heartless for it.
Wish I could form words the way I used to—it’s as if the sky has swallowed whole of the stars, and the light has been digested into an ungodly alternative. Starry, starry night gone gray.
How I wish I was aware of opportunity while it was dancing upon my nose. Wish I could grab at it, hold it tightly in my grip, and wrench all possibilities from it. Drink the juice, swallow what should have been mine. But space beat me to it. All the other galaxies ate up what could have been. They’ve got it now, and on some other earth, where water flows as silver and oxygen as gold, my could-have-beens dwell happily and naively away from what they’ve been aborted from. I take it back—I take it back. I miss you. I miss getting angry at your manipulation and confusion, for now I understand. How you suffered for your sanity as I sat and twiddled my thumbs. Stupid girl will never learn.
And amazingly, I continue to sit here, I will always be sitting here, inside my head. I confess, I’ll never learn. Kill all my lovers and burn my books, steal my health and slaughter my looks…I’ll never fucking learn.
I sheild away my
demons,
for I just feel
too, too much
for such a war to
fight.
But I forget
a time when this
ocean
reflected waters
so heavenly
bright.
My armour is
rusting.
My sword’s
decayed.
There’s no use for I
to go on treading
this way.
